Languages of Diplomacy in the Eighteenth-Century World
International conference
Moscow, January 13-14, 2022
German Historical Institute in Moscow, Higher School of Economics (Moscow)
With the support of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation
Event location: online via Zoom
Webinar ID: 830 6188 0061
https://dhi-moskau-org.zoom.us/j/83061880061
NB: The conference is held with simultaneous translation En ↔ Ru. We always indicate Moscow time, i.e. CET+2. The titles of the papers are indicated in the language in which they will be
presented.
Конференция проводится с синхронным переводом англ ↔ рус. Время московское (CET+2).
Названия докладов указаны на том языке, на котором доклады будут представлены.

January 13

10:30 – 10:50 Opening of the Conference: Welcome and introduction
Sandra Dahlke (Director of the German Historical Institute Moscow), Vladislav Rjéoutski (GHI
Moscow), Igor Fedyukin (Higher School of Economics, Moscow)

10:50 – 12:00 Keynote lecture
Guido Braun (University of Upper Alsace), Sovereignty and Languages of Diplomacy in the
Seventeenth Century

12:00 – 13:00 Panel 1. Language Choice at Peace Congresses
Chair: Igor Fedyukin (Higher School of Economics, Moscow)
Konstantinos Poulios (European University Institute in Florence), A “Small Babel” on the Banks of the Danube: Languages of Communication and Negotiation at the Peace Congress of Carlowitz (1698-1699)
Pelayo Fernández García (University of Oviedo / University of Versailles), Diplomacy, Languages and European Balance: the Negotiations at the Congress of Soissons (1728-1729)

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 17:30 Panel 2. The Choice of Languages and Diplomatic Traditions
Chair: Denis Sdvižkov (GHI Moscow)
Gleb Kazakov (Justus-Liebig University of Gießen), German and French in the Diplomacy of the Duchy Mecklenburg-Schwerin in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
Tatjana Trautmann (University of Kiel), The “Linguistic Turn” in Diplomacy in Prussia under
Frederick II
Matthew I. McDonald (University of Princeton), Striving after Style: Francophone Diplomacy in Prussia, 1740–86

15:45 – 16:00 Coffee break
Nina Pösch (University of Upper Alsace / University of Augsburg), Languages in the Diplomatic Correspondence between France and the Territories of the Holy Roman Empire
Ellen R. Welch (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Excuse my French: The Rhetoric of Linguistic Incompetence in Early American Diplomacy

January 14

10:30 – 12:15 Panel 3. Languages and Diplomatic Cultures in Contact
Chair: Olga Khavanova (Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow)
Tatiana Bazarova (Historical and Research Archive, Saint Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences), Языки общения и переговоров русских дипломатов при Высокой Порте в эпоху Петра Великого (Russian Diplomats in the Ottoman Empire in the Reign of Peter the Great: Languages of Communication and Negotiation)
Vladislav Rjéoutski (German Historical Institute in Moscow), Diplomacy, Court, and the City: Language Practices of Russian Diplomats in Spain in the first half of the Eighteenth Century
Jonathan Singerton (University of Innsbruck), Communicating Among the Powers of the Earth: The Entry of American Diplomats into the Francophone World of Diplomacy, 1775-1800

12:15 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 17:15 Panel 4. Case studies
Chair: Vladislav Rjéoutski (GHI Moscow)
Michelle Waldispühl (University of Gothenburg), and Beata Megyesi (University of Uppsala), Language Choice in Eighteenth-Century Diplomatic Ciphers from Europe
Sophie Holm (PoDoCo Research Fellow, Helsinki), Swedish Diplomacy as a Linguistic Milieu: Tracing the Language Choices of Foreign Embassies in Eighteenth-Century Stockholm
Olga Khavanova (Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow), The Mission of Austrian Ambassador Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf in St Petersburg (1755): The Symbolism and the Practice of Verbal Communication

15:15 – 15:30 Coffee break
Ernest Zitser (Duke University), “Il parlait assez bien français et plusieurs langues”: Foreign Language Acquisition and the Diplomatic Self-Fashioning of Prince Boris Ivanovich Kurakin
Maria Petrova (Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences), Языковые практики российских дипломатов иностранного происхождения во второй половине XVIII века
(братья Карл и Иван Симолины) (Language Practices of Russian Diplomats of Foreign Origin in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century: Brothers Karl and Ivan Simolin)
Lee A. Farrow (Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama), The Catacazy Affair (1869-1872) and the Language of Diplomacy

17:15 – 17:30 Concluding remark